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Comics Briefly
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Libraries, Graphic Novels and PW Comics Week
In this issue we’re teaming up with our colleagues at Library Journal and School Library Journal to launch Libraries and Graphic Novels, a new content category at PW Comics Week that will highlight news and information on comics and graphic novels specifically aimed at libraries.
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Panel Mania: Ben 10: Alien Force
Ben 10: Alien Force, written by Peter David with art by Dan Hipp, is based on the Cartoon Network show. After an interstellar wreck is attacked by the Forever Knights, determined to steal alien technology, Ben is sent to a strange realm with a bounty hunter who is after him. Ben 10 will be released by Del Rey on February 23rd.
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It’s Here! Comics Publishers Respond to Apple’s iPad
Last week Apple CEO Steven Jobs finally unveiled the iPad, Apple’s much anticipated multimedia computing and reading device, and there was much discussion among comics publishers and fans about what the device will mean for the future of digital comics.
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Abrams to Publish Deluxe Simpsons Futurama Collection
If you happen to like the Simpsons and Futurama—and really, who doesn’t?—then you’re going to love Matt Groening’s, The Simpson Futurama Crossover Crisis, a deluxe slip-cased hardcover that collects two periodical mini-series originally published in 2002 and 2005 that will be released in April by Abrams' ComicsArt imprint. The book will have a first printing of 100,000 copies worldwide.
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Kevin Smith Gets Dynamic with Green Hornet
Kevin Smith is best known as the director of such slacker classics as Clerks and Dogma, but he has been successfully moonlighting as a comics writer for years, working on such heroes as Green Arrow, Bat-Man and Daredevil. Now his two roles are coming together as he adapts his unproduced Green Hornet screenplay into a 10-issue mini series for Dynamite Entertainment, which debuts in March.
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Teaching and Drawing: James Sturm Returns with Market Day
Like so many creative professionals, James Sturm wears more than one hat. Both a dedicated comics educator and a critically acclaimed cartoonist, Sturm is publishing a new work of fiction, Market Day, which will be released this spring by Drawn and Quarterly.
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Life in Comics: Comics and Baby Talk
I have to admit that comics have not been occupying a lot of my brain space for the past couple of weeks. That is because my husband (and comics collaborator) Brian and I welcomed our first child, Mateo, into the world on January 15. Since then, most of my time and thoughts are occupied with taking care of Mateo and calculating when I can next sleep.
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Comics Briefly
Wizard Comic Con Empire Grows, Takes Cincinnati; Scott Kurtz at the Charles M. Schulz Museum; Neil Gaiman at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara; Becky Cloonan and Brian Wood at Rocketship; Colin Upton Goes Webcomic; This Week @ Good Comics for Kids; and This Week @ The Beat
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Comics Reviews: 2/1/2010
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Panel Mania: Mesmo Delivery
Rafael Grampa's debut full-length graphic novel, Mesmo Delivery, follows ex-boxer Rufo, an Elvis impersonator, and a rowdy crew of drunks who get involved with the wrong delivery service. Mesmo Delivery is published by Dark Horse and will be released in March.
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Fantagraphics to Release Special Edition of King Graphic Biography
Originally published in three volumes released between 1993 and 2003, King, Ho Che Anderson’s much acclaimed graphic biography of Martin Luther King, will be re-released in a special revised hardcover edition in February in conjunction with the beginning of Black History Month.
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Boom! Studios to Launch New Imprint
Despite a tough economy that has forced other publishers to scale back, independent comics publisher Boom! Studios is upsizing its operations and launching Boom! Town, a new imprint that will focus on “literary comics” and selective reissues of out-of-print works in addition to merchandising deals. The new line has projects lined up with legendary comics publisher and now literary agent Denis Kitchen and with cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, creator of Too Much Coffee Man.
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Discovering Manga with Frederik Schodt
Writer, translator and Japanese pop culture expert, Frederik Schodt was writing about manga and Osamu Tezuka when many of us were still watching the Flintstones. Schodt has written a number of books on Japan including Dreamland Japan, The Astroboy Essays, and the reference book on Japanese comics that has become somewhat of a bible, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics.
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Comics Briefly: 1/26/2010
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Panel Mania: Afrodisiac
Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg's Afrodisac is a collection of short stories focusing on the character Afrodisiac, a mysterious black man endowed with super powers who also happens to be irresistable to woman and even aliens. The stories combine the tongue-in-cheek style of 1970s blaxploitation movies and comics. This preview includes selections from several stories. Afrodisiac is published by AdHouse Books.
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Comics Reviews: 1/25/2010
Northlanders, Zombie Tales and Wizzywig Volumes 3 are reviewed this week.
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First Second’s Mark Siegel Launches New Web Comic Serial
First Second editorial director Mark Siegel, a critically lauded cartoonist, children's book illustrator and designer in his own right, is launching an original web comic, Sailor Twain or the Mermaid in the Hudson, that will begin serializing January 28 at SailorTwain.com with new material posted three days a week.
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The Big Graphic Novels of 2010
The year 2010 promises to deliver a wide variety of exciting new graphic works with new graphic novels coming from such artists as Dan Clowes, Charles Burns, and Dash Shaw on the literary comics side, as well as the continued and growing presence of work from prose writers looking to try their skills in the comics medium.
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New Business, New Books for Top Shelf in 2010
Indie publisher Top Shelf has started the year out with some new partners. Long run by the two-man brain trust of Chris Staros and Brett Warnock, the publisher has added two partners, new media entrepreneur John S. Johnson, and independent film producer Anthony Bregman who together will own 33% of the company.